SOAP.

That the first express mention of soap occurs in Pliny and Galen, and

that the former declares it to be an invention of the Gauls, though he

prefers the German to the Gallic soap[231], has already been remarked

by many. Pliny says that soap[232] was made of tallow and ashes; that

the best was made of goats’ tallow and the ashes of the beech-tree, and

that there were two kinds of it, hard and soft. The author of a work on

simple medicines, which is ascribed to Galen, but which however does

not seem to have been written by that author, and of which only a Latin

translation has been printed, speaks of soap being made by a mixture

of oxen, goats’, or sheep’s tallow, and a lye of ashes strengthened

with quicklime. He says the German soap was the purest, the fattest,

and the best, and that the next in quality was the Gallic[233]. This

account corresponds more exactly with the process used in Germany at

present; whereas the French use mineral alkali, and instead of tallow,

employ oil, which appears to be a later invention. Pliny in his

description does not speak of quicklime; but as he mentions a mixture

of goats’ tallow and quicklime a little before, it is probable that

the use of the latter was then known at Rome. Gallic and German soap

are often mentioned by later writers[234], as well as by the Arabians,

sometimes on account of their external use as a medicine, and sometimes

on account of their use in washing clothes. The latter purpose is that

for which soap is principally employed in modern times; but it does not

seem to have been the cause of German soap being introduced at Rome.

Washing there was the occupation of indigent scourers, who did not give

themselves much trouble concerning foreign commodities. The German

soap, with which, as Pliny tells us, the Germans coloured their hair

red, was imported to Rome for the use of the fashionable Roman ladies

and their gallants. There is no doubt that the _pilæ Mattiacæ_, which

Martial recommends as a preventive of gray hair[235]; the _caustica

spuma_ with which the Germans dyed their hair[236]; and the Batavian

froth or lather which the Romans employed for colouring theirs[237],

were German soap. It is probable that the Germans tinged it with those

plants which were sent to Rome for dyeing the hair[238]; and according

to the modern manner of speaking, it was more properly a kind of pomade

than soap.

It appears that the Romans at first considered hair-soap as an ointment

made from ashes; for we read in various passages of ancient authors,

that the hair was dyed by means of ashes, or an ointment made of ashes

and a certain kind of oil. It is however possible that they may have

had such an ointment, which undoubtedly would be of a saponaceous

nature, before they were acquainted with the German soap, or that they

imitated the German pomade with different variations[239].

As soap is everywhere used for washing at present, a question arises

what substitutes were employed before it was invented. Those with which

I am acquainted I shall mention and endeavour to illustrate. They are

all still used, though not in general; and they are all of a soapy

nature, or at least have the same effects as soap; so that we may say

the ancients used soap without knowing it.

Our soap is produced by a mixture of lixivious salts and tallow, by

which means the latter becomes soluble in water. The greater part of

the dirt on our linen and clothes consists of oily perspiration or

grease, or dust which that grease attracts, and which either cannot

be washed out, or, but very imperfectly, by water alone. But if warm

water, to which lixivious salts have in any manner been added, be

taken, and if dirty cloth be rubbed in it, the greasy dirt unites with

the salts, becomes saponaceous, and is so far soluble in water that it

may be washed out. There are also natural juices which are of a soapy

quality, in the state in which we find them, and which can be employed

in the stead of artificial soap. Of this kind is the gall of animals

and the sap of many plants. The former being less strong in its effects

on account of its slimy nature, is used at present particularly for

coloured stuffs, the dye of which is apt to fade. As far as I know,

however, it was not employed by the ancients[240], but it is certain

that in washing they used saponaceous plants.

In the remotest periods it appears that clothes were cleaned by being

rubbed or stamped upon in water, without the addition of any substance

whatever. We are told by Homer, that Nausicaa and her attendants washed

their clothes by treading upon them with their feet in pits, into which

they had collected water[241]. The epithet black, which the poet gives

to the water, might induce one to conjecture that it had been mixed

with ashes, which would convert it into a lye; but where were the ashes

to be found? Had they brought them along with them, the bard, where

he before enumerates everything that they carried with them, and even

oil, would not have failed to mention them; and such a conjecture is

rendered entirely groundless by his applying the same epithet to pure

water, in other places, where nothing can be supposed to have coloured

it[242]. Water, when it stands in deep pits, reflects so few rays of

light, that in a poetical sense it may very properly be called black.

We find however mention made at later periods of ashes, and a lye of

ashes employed for washing; but I think very seldom, and I do not know

how old the use of them may be. According to Julius Pollux, _konia_,

mentioned by Aristophanes and Plato, was a substance used for washing;

and he says expressly, that we are to understand by it a lye of ashes.

This I mention for the sake of those, who, like me, place little

confidence in the terms of art given in dictionaries. With the above

lye, oil- and wine-jars were cleaned[243]; and it was employed also for

washing the images of the gods[244]. The method of strengthening the

lye by means of unslaked lime was known, at any rate, in the time of

Paulus Ægineta; but it appears that the Romans were not acquainted with

the salt itself, which is procured by dissolving common wood-ashes in

water: I mean, they did not understand the art of producing it in a dry

solid form, or of boiling potashes.

On the other hand, that fixed lixivious salt, the mineral which nature

presents in many of the southern countries, was long known and used in

washing. This was the _nitrum_, or, as the people of Attica pronounced

it, the _litrum_, of the ancients, as has already been remarked by

others[245]. It would however be worth the trouble to investigate the

proofs still further. By examining them with more mineralogical and

chemical knowledge than have hitherto been employed for that purpose,

they might be further strengthened, and serve to illustrate many

obscure passages. For my part, I have neither leisure nor room here

to undertake such a task, though I have collected many observations

relative to that subject. It is certain at any rate, that the ancients

employed _nitrum_ for washing, and it is evident from the testimony of

various authors, that it was much used in the baths[246].

That the people of Egypt, in the time of Pliny, made mineral alkali

also from the ashes of some plants, we have reason to conclude, because

he says that it was necessary to put the Egyptian nitre into vessels

well-corked, else it became liquid. Natural alkali is never liable to

do so, unless it be very much burnt; and as no reason is assigned for

its assuming that form, we may believe that the Egyptian alkali was the

strongly burnt ashes of those plants which are still used in Egypt for

making salt, and perhaps the same with which the Spaniards were made

acquainted by the Arabians, and which they cultivate for making soda.

Strabo speaks of an alkaline water in Armenia, which was used by the

scourers for washing clothes[247]. Of this kind also must have been

the lake Ascanius, which is mentioned by Aristotle[248], Antigonus

Carystius[249], and Pliny[250]. It is worthy of remark, that the

ancients made ointments of this mineral alkali and oil, but not hard

soap, though by these means they approached nearer to the invention

than the old Germans in their use of wood-ashes; for dry solid soap

can be made with more ease from the mineral than the vegetable alkali;

and when Hungarian, French, and German soap are of equal goodness, the

last does more credit to the manufacturers because they cannot employ

the mineral alkali. I shall here observe, that this alkali was used for

washing by the Hebrews, and that it occurs in the sacred writings under

the name of _borith_[251].

The cheapest however, and the most common article used for washing,

was the urine of men and animals. When this excrement becomes old, the

alkali disengages itself, which may be perceived by its fœtid smell;

and such alkalised urine being warmed, and employed to wash greasy

clothes, produces the same effects as the _nitrum_ of the ancients. It

is still used for the like purpose in our cloth manufactories.

To procure a supply of it, the ancient washers and scourers placed at

the corners of the streets, vessels which they carried away after they

had been filled by the passengers, who were at liberty to use them; and

the practice of having such conveniences was certainly more decent than

that of employing the walls of churches and other buildings, which the

police of Dresden forbade some years ago, but with no effect. At Rome,

that which at present spoils and renders filthy our noblest edifices,

was converted to use. When clothes were washed, they were trod upon

with the feet, as was the case in the cloth manufactories at Leeds,

Halifax, and other places of England, where the urine was collected

by servants, and sold by measure to the manufacturers under the name

of _old lant_. On account of the disagreeable smell attending their

employment, scourers at Rome were obliged to reside either in the

suburbs or in some of the unfrequented streets[252].

My readers here will undoubtedly call to remembrance the source of

taxation devised by the emperor Vespasian, who, as his historians tell

us, _urinæ vectigal commentus est_[253]. It is not certainly known

in what manner this impost was regulated. Did the emperor declare

that article, which was not _subterraneum rarius_, to be a regale as

a _res derelicta_, so that the scourers were obliged to pay him what

he thought a reasonable sum proportioned to the benefit which they

derived from it? Or was it imposed only as a poll-tax? For every tax

upon anything indispensably necessary to all, is, to speak in the

language of finance, the same as what is called a poll-tax, or a tax

paid by every one who has a head. The latter conjecture is the most

probable, especially as this tax continued two centuries, till the time

of Anastasius, and as we read also of _vectigal pro urina jumentorum et

canum_, which was exacted from every person who kept cattle. Vespasian

therefore was not fortunate in the choice of a name for his tribute,

which on that account must have been undoubtedly more detested. A

poll-tax at present is called by those who do not speak favourably of

it, the Turkish-tax, because the Turks impose it on all unbelievers.

When it was introduced by Louis XIV. in 1695, he called it _la

capitation_.

Of plants with a saponaceous juice, the ancients, at any rate, used one

instead of soap; but it is difficult or rather impossible to define

it. I shall not therefore content myself merely with transcribing the

passages where it is mentioned, but I shall arrange whatever I can find

respecting it in such a manner, as, according to my opinion, the names

of plants ought to be explained in dictionaries.

Στρουθίον, Struthium, Latinis Herba lanaria, et Plinio etiam Radicula.